Japanese Treasures

A dear friend of mine, Ruth offered to take me along when she went to visit one of her favourite places "Edo Arts".

This place is an Aladdin's cave of anything Japanese, including a vast array of kimono's, textiles, papers, books and old photographs. 

There are beautiful wooden chests and cabinets whose draws are filled with exotic textiles. Here are a few pieces of Kimono fabric that I bought, the pattern and textures in these are just wonderful, and yes there's plenty of scope for the addition of dye if I feel the need.

Part of the Seven Sins workshop I started last year included using text as part of the work, so when I spotted this old book, I couldn't resist adding it my collection for future use. It seems a shame that I will dismantle this. As you can see  it is hand bound using stab stitch which is a technique recently featured in Cloth, Paper Scissors.

The inside cover has these cute little birds on it, will be wonderful for something.

And the writing  just flows down the page.

My other great find was this brush, it has been used for applying dye of some sort as the brush is still full of it. The head of the brush is about 7cms across and it stands about 15cms high. I am going to use this to apply dye and see what happens. If anyone knows exactly what this is or how it is used, I'd love to hear from you.

I don't know how long we stayed and browsed around Edo Arts, but before we knew it, our day out was over and we had to hit the highway and head back home.